June 3, 1880.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



349 



ABOUT SI I ! 



SOM6 time ago the qiueation -was asked through the 

 columns o\ FORI • \ D Stream whether there 

 wore any authentic, accounts of ihen being i ten. bj 

 sharks. i i. linbreph; to this question, and being 



last winter oti the Florida coast— a region where shark's 

 are abundant — Imade inquiry among fishermen on this 

 point. 



A well-known fisherman, a man of intelligence and 

 veracity, who has been Bailing on that Coast for forty 

 years, tells me that he knew of two persons devoured by 

 sharks at Feusae.. >la some twenty years ago, when he was 

 living them. While be was at lWli.au Kiver lib I.. he 



-;i,b-l - .. 



o .;■■.- oa ' id 

 Oredbysb 

 ten yearn ag . a b i.a 

 doga was capsized in 

 of the doga started t 

 The boy and the otto 

 were taken ofi by 

 Raw a number of ve 

 fro in an excited ma 

 disappeared, and believed that 1 

 as the water, from the set of feb 

 every ohj ,■< si ion roi later upon th 

 man nor the d ig was ever so b 

 ago a sailor 1'rom a vessel lying at 

 in the ship's boat. He did e 

 being made, the boat, oars. etc.. t 

 hat, were found on the beach. Th. 



a American man- 

 . and most, of the crew 

 lusquito Inlet, east coast, 

 g a man. a boy and two 



e bar. The man and one 



:>ro, but soon disappeared. 

 ained on the wreck, and 

 an, who lived near. He 

 larks swimming to and 



i be place where the man 



he was eaten by them, 



i ndes at this inlet, casts 



sither the 



Ab 



ot hi 



out fish- 

 1 search 



* found , 



and the opinion was; that the 



This bar is a dangerous plat 

 during the last ten years have 

 is no lighthouse, and n me I 



Cape Carna veral, a distanci D 

 some o'f these wrecks several persons % 

 in every instance except the two me 

 drifted on shore. The infere lo. 

 instances the bodies were eaten by shs 

 My informant has several Limes' seen 

 sharks, while swimming across the river; also he 

 Once, while fishing with a seine on the beach, in the 

 night, lie waa himself seized by a shark. Having cm 

 very large and heavy canvas trowsers, he escaped with a 

 severe bite and the loss of part of his trowsers. During 

 the war he caught sharks for their oil, and has taken 

 hundreds. If i.be shark line was left out over night it 

 was common to find the bead of one on the hook in the 

 morning, the body having been devoured by other sharks 

 in the night. Once he found half the body of an alli- 



of vessels 

 wrecked there. There 

 en St. Augustine and 

 hundred miles. In 

 s were drowned, but 

 nentionod the bodies 

 la that in those two 

 sharks. 



Jogs seized hy the 



tach of a large shark, is 

 n spite of its coat of mail, 

 a story found in all books, that 

 rn on its back to seize its prey, 

 an error. All Iris experience 

 ized its prey like oi her fishes. 



gator five feet long in the 

 having been bitto 

 Referring to th< 

 the shark is obliged to tan 

 this expert considered it 

 taught him that the shark 

 Indeed, he thought it would starve if it"]: 

 in its way. With all its swiftness there are many fish 

 swifter than it. Often, while fishing' on the beach in 

 summer for channel bass, a shark would come and cut 

 the Bush in two before it could be hauled in with a hand 

 line, and the shark could be seen to seize it. I myself 

 have caught with rod and reel many sharks in those 

 ■waters, of many species — the common brown shark, the 

 shovel-nosed shark, the hammer-hea'ded shark and the 

 nurse shark, and whenever they were in a position to 

 tako the bait they always took it swimming on their 

 bellies. I have had them also take my fish away before I 

 could reel them in. S. C. 0. 

 ♦ 



BtECTOKOLOStOAL.— Van Buren, Ar'/c, May 1st.— I no- 

 tice, in your issue of April 23d, your correspondent, 

 Thos. S. Roberts' report of the range of thermometer 

 during the month of March at Minneapolis. On refer- 

 ring to my own table of same dates, each day compared 

 Ae difference, more than I supposed the 



average could, be— and his coldest d 

 For instance, on the ! 1th he repoi 

 grees. and on the 10th 7 degrees bet 

 my notes, 1 find our coldest day 

 sunrise my thermometer stood 30 di 

 16th, 32 degrees, and so on throng 

 On the 2oth we had the last quail 

 after which tuna they are hi 

 There were three of us, and e 

 was excessively warm, and 



The mercury 73 de; 

 buds, but too warm 

 success. The three 



Chas. D , our c 



whilst myself and 

 our friend, as be a 



ildest. 

 below zero 8 de- 

 . Oa reference to 

 a the 14th, and at 

 •eee above. On the 

 Hie entire month. 

 mt of the season, 

 to pah and nest, 

 bh had one dog. The clay 

 re took it very leisurely. 



at 13 o'clock noon." Plenty bf 

 i to exercise enough to make large 

 ! of us only killed "eightv-live birds. 

 ■ack shot, killed over hall' the birds. 

 3apt, B — poked around and cheered 



id bs 



•y bi 



ch b 



d that 

 is .just 



April 

 passed, has been the stranger, the most 



perature, and in meteorological phenomena generally , 

 that has ever, in the memory of anybody, been previously 

 experienced. On the 5th and tith, for instance, the ther- 

 mometer stood 94 degrees above, each day, from 2 to i 

 o'clock cm. On the 8th, as low as 58 degrees above at 

 same hours. On the Oth, had some frost, and mercury 

 as low as 35 degrees at sunrise ; and so on, with no two 

 days alike. The wind all the while was fron 



li! h, 



tl. 



ule 



duds 



Of tin 



18th, the day that th 

 ike loose and swept certain localities wit! 

 m of death in the form of cyclones and hurri- 

 •as a beautiful, warm morning, with some south- 

 ed. At 1 o'clock thermometer stood at 70 d ' 

 in ordinary hail storm, we had none of it here. 

 hail in some places was enormously large, many 

 stones weighing eight and ton ounces, killing quail, rab- 

 bits and other small animals. Old SPORTSMAN. 



Excep 

 But tt 



"Was it the Bead Shake J—FhttadOphia, Pa., May 



KJih.— Editor Forest and titream:—. In your last paper I 

 find a letter from " Kauficus." in which he describes a 

 its name. Now. if am not mis- 

 taken, the snake alluded to is the bead snake (Elans fid- 

 run). It has very prominent poison fangs, but vary rarely 

 uses them. It is streaked black, red and yellow, and pre- 

 sents quite a handsome appearance. In regard to its tail, 

 I think " Kauticus' " specimen must have met with an 

 as the tail is not blunt but tapering, like the 

 tails of most other snakes. Bead Shake, 



■ Do i In ■ -/I i.i .!,■- Lay or Wintee Food ' j n 

 ries "Sharpeyes," in funnsT a: - h ol May 6th 



In Central Mew forktheydo preside Eoi then; 



teiianee for the long, COld winter!-;; but in tnc much 



guilder climate of .Southern Indiana, from the well-known 



predatory disposition of the gray squirrel, I can well be- 

 lieve thai he would impose upon the thrift ami fore- 

 thought of his little cottsiu, the chipmunk — "ohiiriping 

 monk." When I was a youth 1 saw many gray Squir- 

 rels' nests, 01 dens, broken up in. winter while helping 

 the older men in the woods get out timber for building 

 purposes or for fuel. These nest-;, or dens, were 

 usually well stored with acorns, beech nuts and 

 shell "barks (we used to Call them walnuts!, and Often 

 we found in them small apples. 1 distinctly re- 

 member on one occasion of finding in a gray squirrel's 

 den an apron (calico) in a tolerable state of preservation, 

 that was recognized as the property of a near female rel- 

 i:. i oJ the writer, which hadheen missed from where 



it was hung "to drv" several months previously, after be- 

 ing washed. In the section of country to which I refer— 

 Central New York — the gray squirrels usually nested in 

 hollow portions of the beech tree, although 1 have seen 

 their dens in the black oak. In the selection of points 

 for dens they almost invariably chose a southern expo- 

 sure for obvious reasons. A hollow limb, with the en- 

 trance to the hollow from below, appeared the favorite 

 choice. They would tear out the rotten Wood and en- 

 large the hollow, and their atore would appear to be 



packed in with considerable mechanical neenracv. 1 do 

 not now remember of ever seeing a black squirrel there 

 during the winter months. It is possible that they were 

 seen by others, however, although it was common rumor 

 that they went South during the cold months. Every 

 second year, when there was plenty of mast or nuts, the 

 squirrels — black, red and gray— woidd be numerous. 

 They generally appeared wil'b the fall flight of the wild 

 pigeons in considerable numbers, and I always found 

 great delight in studying their habits and shooting them. 

 Philadelphia, May 12th, C. E. C, 



To""W." — An Iowa correspondent, Who writes over 

 this signature, will no doubt remember having 

 last fall the pupa? of the cabbage butterfly, in which the 

 eggs of a parasitic Hi/menopter had been deposited, and 

 some of which were filled with its larvae, Since their 

 receipt, these pupae have been kept inclosed in a bottle 

 on our desk, and within the past day or two the adult 

 parasites have commenced to appear in considerable num- 

 bers. We first noticed them May 20th. though some had 

 probably appeared earlier, as there were a number Of 

 dead ones on the bottom of the bottle. We hope that 

 "W."will be glad to bear that her pets have done so 

 well. 



One Way to Catch Badgjsks.— The following very 

 interesting account is contributed by " F. M." to the Lon- 

 don Field, We have no badgers here in the East, it is 

 true, but perhaps some of our Western readers may gain 

 a useful hint from the extract .— 



Mr. Stanley Orred has certainly fulfilled both my con- 

 ditions, and. has been more successful than I should have 

 thought possible ; but then he had a most able coadjutor 

 in Trojan, and he hit upon a tract of country where 

 badgers were verv plentiful. My plan wa 



oonlight night, and watch the badger on 

 then put a sack with a running noose round:: o ! 

 down the earth, so arranged that the month of the e !. 

 just filled the mouth of the hole. The mouth of the sack- 

 was then propped open with a little bit of stick, just big 

 enough for the purpose. When this was accomplished 

 by the man who, seated in an adjacent tree, had watched 

 the badger out of the earth, he gave a loud whistle ; then 

 I, who had been waiting a few hundred yards Off with 

 the two terriers, let them go. They rushed toward the 

 whistle, and getting on the scent of the badger, ran him 

 full tilt into the sack. Then my confederate had nothing 

 to do but pull the string, and the badger, having in his 

 hurried rush displaced the bit of stick which kept open 

 the mouth of the bag, was safely caught uninjured in the 

 suck, and nothing remained but to take him home. This 

 seems easv enough in theory, but in reality it was full of 

 difficulties. All depends on the tact and watchfulness of 

 the man who has to put the suck in tl le earth. The badger 

 liasa habit,before he finally leaves his earth on his rounds, 

 of coming two or three times about half out of the earth 

 to look about him. If during this critical time lie scents, 

 sees or hears the watcher, back he bolts with a grunt and 

 all is over for that night. Again, the watcher in bis 

 erness sometimes does not allow the badger to gel Eaj 

 enough away before he begins the descent from the I ree. 

 Th I- if hears him. and rushes back !,.. bis earth, and 

 will unhesitatingly charge the man if be b itai ling 

 between bin) and bis earth, and slip by him somehow be- 

 fore he can grab liim with his tongs. Sometimes, too, 

 especially if there are two or three badgers in the earth, 

 they Will come out in the plateau in front of the huleand 

 play about and tight, etc., for for half an hoar before 

 they go off, and then it is a hundred to one that the un- 

 lucky man in the tree coughs or sneezes in his anxietj .or 

 else that a little puff of air betray s Ins « hereabouts, espe- 

 cially if it should come on cold, for the cold air descends 

 Tom him to the badger. On the one. occasion in which I 

 -vas successful, I chose a very warm, still moonlight uight 

 n July. About 7 p.m. my man went off with the sack 

 and tongs to the earth, which was about a mile from mv 

 bouse. Tt was a small cave in the limestone, just at the 

 t ip i if a wooded ravine ; all round the earth was perfect ly 

 free from trees or underwood of any kind, except one 

 ash iree which grew just above the cave rn the side of 

 the hill. The man got into this, and made himself as 

 comfortable as he could. It was a capital place for the 

 sport, as he could see everything about: the mouth of the 

 hole quite plainly. About 8.30 I walked over the hihs, 

 with the terriers" i'n a slip, and ensconced myself in the 

 wooded ravine about four hundred yards from the earth. 

 There I sat, the terriers quite silent but. trembling from 

 excitement, waiting for the whistle, and listening to all 

 the weird and curious sounds which are to he beaid in a 

 wood on a still summer's night. Suddenly the shrill 

 hoed down the glen. I taBtantly loosed the 

 terriers, who at once disappeared in the gloom of the 

 wood. I tore after them up the side of the ravine, and 

 on arriving, panting and breathless, on the plateau in 



front of (he cave, found toyman dancuigwitli 



merit, and :i. treinoudoUS fflff going on in the I ' ■•. 



the earth. If seems the dog. more active Hum the bitch, 

 hail gone headlong after the badge.' ode, 



drew out the sack into the open. rind, fearing I- 



would be seriously injured at such close quarters, inn" 



bled them both out on die grass. The bit stanilt 



joined in the fray, and just at that critical moment, win it 



- il ol ighfcto enable us to get a. iiim 



grip of the badger with the tongs, the moon went behind 

 a eloud. There was nothing for it but to wait and let 

 them tight it out. fortunately, n e minub s 



the moon came out again, and we were enabled to pin the 



badger by the back of the neck. I bad a rare job to a t 



: I ■ --lat length rn g ;, ,, i I [, 



coupled up and fastened to the ash tree. I , 



any means an easy bask to . , . wilO*wa.R verV 



aayage and snapping at everything, i ito th isack; bntut 

 last we managed it, tied up the mouth of it, and carried 



him home, I kept him for a bit, lib I bad ma 

 digging. tO get another— a female; and then I turned 

 them into an artificial earth in a wood of my own son,,-; 

 miles off. They did not stay there long, but soon estab- 

 lished themselves in an i i lot ■■. . where they may 

 be now for aught I know, fori soon afterward.-; 



property and removed to another part of the cot 



As fa* as Iknow, they never bred. Iheydestro; ;d 



young rabbits by digging them cut, and they were nar- 



ticularly feud of wild ; .■■.■■ . ' nests, i III h < re Eoi d 



scratched out all over the estate ; and if oi - 



bee's nest torn out and dug Up, One may be | 



there are badgers in the vicinity. In this taste they re 



seinble the bear. 



Animals Eeci 



BOHl.-One t 



: -(••auier 



tr. 0. Carlos, Ne 



' : ; one iVewfoundl.-nul flog, t 

 .ley show, plaoe.l on exhibition. 



.1, r.Ullt MEI-fAOCRCE.-.l/C;/ 



cerittps), luih. Europe; ik-v on 



nf Uussni; presented by T)r. 



One ocelot (Fotfc wrdaii ;, 



' "" ■ '■ ifl '"'■■' 



■I 1 I itlQ 1IK- 



3k die firsl (size at (.lie Jam 

 W. ii. Conkmn, Director. 



J?4 §tMm$. 



—Address all communications to ■•Forest and Stream 

 Publishing Company, New York." 



LFrom a Staff Corrospondeut.I 



THE INTERNATIONAL FISHERY EXHIBITION AT 



BERLIN. 



IV. AJIBER, 



IT is a most wonderful exhibition. One hardly knows 

 whereto begin to write about it : the objects displayed 

 are so \ aried, and many are so curious, useful or beauti- 

 ful, and the transitions from one case or department are 



Sets and boatmod to< ae finds a^oa'se oTpea! Is ofgr eat ' 

 value, together with shells of mother-of-pearls, baliotis 



and other brilliant hues; or, a case of amber in its 

 natural or manufactured state, as jewelry, cigar holders 

 cuff -buttons, etc., and to a lover of amber the display 

 here is marvelous. Here are amber gems, half clear and 

 half cloudy, into whose depths the eyeoftheamber-loyer 

 delights to dwell ; and here are insects ;.\ hoBe pre-historic 

 lives are recorded in the preserving resin of a vegetation 



g aei ion cheap pipes, but of those delicately vemed 



and clouded forms through the rent veils of which the 

 fire is seen within, glowing like a thing with life. A thing 

 of lifer It is alive. It is the soul of a thing which had 

 what wo call " life "thousands of years ago. but which 

 ii-i b er, buried in the - todau Inrudj under \ ;ll , 

 seas, until the day oi its resurrection and pun ilea 1 1, ,i 

 outward defilement, when it again sees the lighi 

 assumes place among the beautiful things of earth, 

 and lives its new life amid gayer scenes, jftoore's lines— 

 "Around dice shall glisten the loveliest ambor 

 That ever the suriowiug-sea-bird lue, wept," 



If altered to " fir-tree "would be as truthfully desCrfE 

 tlve as they are poetical, and much more consistent, i ',- 

 the sea-bird wcepeth not, save when a herring sticka m 

 its throat, when a tear or two might swim aroua 

 '"'■"': eye-no and thenj iOuldn t dessicate it into a 



jewel for your sweetbear 's ear Irj any alchemy; but the 

 old tr.-e del v sp Eora rn. ii branch or a, lost leaflet, such 

 great P-ars as now come to us m what cccall " amber " 

 and the Germans term ' ; bernsteiu " (the burning stone). 

 Here is a brooch, a rose with bud and leaf, which com- 

 i . - ; D lie- beauties oi ivor\ and alabaster, while the 

 carving is simply exquisite, and here is another with the 

 bead of Achilles in creamy white upon a base of clear 

 amber as pure as touaa. With such material and work- 

 manship) [pi 'e commanded, the pieces named 



being wortl and fifty dollars, respectivelVj 



w bile common necklaces or clear amber can. be bought 

 for as many cents. 



Germany is the land of amber ; on the shores of the 

 Baltic it is found in great quantities, where it is washed 



up from its beds which once formed a portion of I he main 

 land, but which are nowthe bottom of the sea. It is a 



1 | ' •■•'' ' ■■■ anil fineness beyond 



that ol any resin ol recent origin, and is supposed to be 

 the exudation of a tree eel e 1 :;.v„;i /',-,-, which 



is now extinct, and is only found In Germany in a frag- 

 mentary form at present, eiiher in bits imbedded in hs 

 own preserving gum or in the "green sands " of- the 

 chalk formation, but which still flourishes in other parts 



ofEuropeand Acmerioa, Goeppert was of the opinion. 



that four species of pine stood togetherin the old amber 

 forest .together with other plants of different kinds which 

 were also resiniferous, and that the mixture of ibegums 

 when in a liquid state produced those beautiful and ram 



forms which we occasionally find, a conclusion which, 

 seems to be verified by the fact that copal, a tindredgum 

 found in Africa, East aud West Indies ana Brazil, conies 



